Character (WAS: COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board)

[John Bailey]

I did love that parting line - "Of course silence is hard to
interpret. If it wasn’t they’d call it “English,” or something."

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 11:54 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> Thanks for that. The letter does seem like mostly a put down, in the nature
>> of  'you're such a clever fellow, why not write your own books.' and saying
>> the interpretation game goes too far, especially in the pursuit of a secret
>> code in the historic  and literary research that will unlock the true
>> meaning.
>>
>
> well, yes but...if it was 1981, that was 1/2 way between
> GR and Vineland - how far can you go into a forest..
>  perhaps he was really feeling that way.
> the stories he was referring to were eventually published as Slow
> Learner, right?
> In the preface he doesn't seem all that impressed with them himself,
> and comes off right sincere, I thought.
>
> so, Mr Hollander caught him at a time when he had had lots of time to
> find fault with his last book, and long before he had any excitement
> about his next book.
> What's more, Mr Hollander's essays, whether or not you agree with
> them, are highly erudite and well researched.  Reading them, somebody
> with a bent for writing stories would probably wonder why Mr H didn't
> haul off and write some...maybe not at that point fully appreciating
> what he himself had already achieved, how high he had set the bar,
> floccinaucinihilipilificating the difficulty, the worth - "the
> achieve, the mastery of the thing"
>
> good thing he apparently listened - eventually - to the various
> parties urging him on
>
>
>
> --
> "For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as.
> For the moment anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are." - GR, p
> 136
>